Hello, It's Me

by Wendy Markham

  He sinks onto the wooden arm of Mother’s chair, afraid to touch his sister, who has never looked more frail. Her skin is paler than usual, her eyes red and swollen.

  “Is the baby . . . ?” Thom can’t bring himself to say it.

  “The baby is okay,” Susan says quickly. “That’s his heart you can hear beating on the monitor.”

  “What about your heart? What did the doctor say?”

  “That continuing the pregnancy could be dangerous,” Susan tells him, and adds, mostly to Wade, “but we knew that it would be high risk from the start. We knew this could happen.”

  Thom hesitates, then asks, “So what are you going to do now?”

  “I’m having this baby.”

  For the first time, Mother speaks up. “Of course you are.”

  Thom swallows hard. “But what if . . . ?”

  His sister’s fearful blue gaze meets his own. “You said it yourself, little brother.”

  “What did I say?”

  “The most worthwhile things in life . . .”

  He smiles, leans over to take her hand, squeezes it gently. “So this is your version of swimming with sharks, huh?”

  “You bet. Think I have it in me?”

  “I know you do,” Thom tells her.

  The children, still panting from their race, are waiting on the steps of Annie’s small, cedar-shingled house in the twilight. Delicate white moths flit overhead in the golden lamplight spilling from an upstairs bedroom window.

  “Milo left his bedroom light on all day again,” Trixie reports, just in case Annie lost her eyesight along the way back from the beach.

  Annie, who a month or two ago would have mentally calculated how many pennies’ worth of electricity had been wasted, says gently, “It’s okay, Milo, just try to remember to turn it off next time you leave the room.”

  “He keeps it on all day and all night, Mommy.”

  “I do not! Not all day. And not all night.”

  No, not all night. But only because Annie has been stealing in to turn it off after her son is sound asleep.

  Though he denied it vehemently the first few times Annie questioned him, she suspects that her superhero son is newly afraid of the dark.

  So are a lot of other boys his age, Annie thinks, setting the buckets and the treasure hunting equipment on the porch. There’s no real harm in sleeping with the light on as far as she’s concerned. But then, she’s no expert in child psychology. Maybe she should run it by Erika, just to be sure.

  “Come on,” she says, “let’s go inside and order that pepperoni pizza.”

  “Yummy!” Milo leaps to his feet and reaches for the screen door handle.

  As it loudly squeaks open, Annie braces for her heart to clench as painfully as it used to.

  Strangely, all she feels is a pleasant wisp of memory.

  Andre.

  The door squeaks shut behind her.

  WD-40.

  “What’s the matter, Mom?” Milo asks after a moment, and she realizes she’s been frozen in the entryway; frozen in time, really.

  “Nothing, sweetie. I just . . . I have to get something from the basement.”

  She hurries through the kitchen and opens the door leading to the shallow cellar beneath the house. Descending the ladderlike stairway, she’s greeted by cooler air and the musty, earthen scent of the rock walls and dirt floor.

  This was Andre’s territory; rarely did Annie venture into the spider-populated depths when he was alive, and only out of extreme necessity now that he’s gone. Someday, she’ll probably have to go through the heaps of fishing gear, the mildewed boxes of discarded household odds and ends.

  Someday, she’ll probably be ready.

  After all, she’s managed, over the last month or so, to gradually move his clothes out of the tiny closet in their bedroom. It isn’t something she accomplished without guilt, but it’s not as though she’s tossed them into the garbage. She merely packed the clothes into plastic tubs and stored them in the attic. The closet is so small that it’s silly not to claim the extra space.

  It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love him anymore.

  It only means . . .

  That he’s gone. And he isn’t coming back. And it’s time to stop pretending that he is.

  Wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, Annie makes her way gingerly through the maze of basement clutter toward the far wall.

  Andre was such an incredible pack rat, she thinks, shaking her head. He saved everything: old magazines, broken appliances, even the green telephone with a curly cord that used to hang on the wall in the kitchen before they replaced it with a modern cordless one.

  On a rickety bookshelf rescued from somebody’s curbside trash sit boxes full of tools, rows of nail-filled baby food jars, cans of turpentine and stain.

  There are also cans of blue and pink paint from both times they decorated the nursery, the picture-hanging kits they always meant to use to replace the plain nails beneath the hastily hung wedding and baby pictures on the living room walls, the half-finished birdhouse Andre was building with Milo.

  Annie’s tears are falling more quickly now, blinding her so that she can barely see the packets of flower seeds he never got around to planting last spring, the small footstool he always meant to refinish so the kids could reach the sink in the upstairs bathroom.

  Sniffling, she brushes aside cobwebs, moves the paint and then the nails, searching for the small can she knows must be here someplace. It has to be, because he always talked about getting around to it sooner or later.

  Life—his life—was just too short.

  Annie shrugs her damp cheekbones against her shoulders to dry them. When she looks up again, there it is, right in front of her. She plucks the can from the shelf and carries it back upstairs.

  She walks purposefully toward the front door.

  “What is that, Mommy?” Milo asks.

  She takes a deep breath, exhales shakily. “It’s WD-40.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “It’ll stop the door from making that loud noise every time we open it.”

  “Why do you want to do that?”

  “Because,” she says simply, “it’s time.”

  Annie opens the door with one last protesting squeak. She holds it open with her foot and removes the top from the can.

  Then, with Milo watching intently, she sprays the aerosol lubricant into the top hinges, then the bottom.

  “That stuff stinks,” Milo comments.

  “I know.”

  “Does it work?”

  “We’ll find out.”

  Annie pulls the door closed.

  No squeak.

  She pushes it open again.

  No squeak.

  “It works!” Milo says with delight.

  “Yes.” She heaves a sigh of relief.

  “You’re a good fixer, Mom. Daddy’s really proud of you.”

  “Do you think?”

  Milo nods vehemently. “I know he is.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because . . .” Milo hesitates. “I just know. Mom? What are you going to do next? Can you build me a treehouse?”

  With a laugh, Annie says, “How about if I order you a pizza instead?”

  “With pepperoni, right?”

  “With pepperoni,” she agrees. Then she tells Milo, “I’ll order the pizza in a second, okay? First I have to go do something.”

  “What? Are you going to fix something else?”

  “No, nothing like that,” she assures him, heading for the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”

  Alone in her room, Annie crosses over to the dresser, where a carved wooden box holds her meager collection of jewelry. She hesitates only a second before lifting the lid.

  First, she unfastens the chain around her neck; the one on which she wears Andre’s wedding ring. Then she slips her ring off her finger and tucks it inside along with his, between an outdated velvet choker and a lone silver hoop earr
ing. It was her favorite pair; she kept the single earring just in case she stumbled across its lost partner someday, but that never happened. Now she’s certain it never will.

  But that doesn’t mean she has to get rid of this one. There’s nothing wrong with keeping it safely tucked away here with her other things, some more precious than others.

  No, there’s nothing wrong with finding a way to hold on, maybe just a little longer, even as you’re learning to let go.

  The traffic has subsided by the time Thom leaves the hospital in the wee hours of the morning. On-duty yellow cabs are plentiful along the avenue, but he decides to walk home through the warm night air.

  He needs a chance to clear his head and decompress after the intense day he’s endured.

  Susan will be hospitalized for at least the immediate future; quite possibly for the remainder of her pregnancy. Touched by his sister’s undaunted acceptance of her plight, Thom stayed at her side long after Mother and Wade went home to get some rest.

  Only when a sleepy Susan insisted that Thom follow suit did he agree to leave her. But he promised to visit her first thing in the morning, before he heads to the office to update the board of directors on the official status of the Saltwater Treasures acquisition.

  After that . . .

  He’ll be free.

  Not forever, not yet . . . but at least for the remainder of the day.

  Free to go back home and just be. He might sleep, or read a book, or . . .

  Or drive out to Montauk for the first time in months.

  Okay, where did that thought come from?

  He wasn’t planning to do that yet.

  He’s supposed to wait until everything has fallen into place. Until the Saltwater Treasures acquisition is completed, and he’s stepped down from the board, and the Village brownstone is his, and he’s had a chance to figure out exactly what he wants to say to Annie . . .

  Timing, after all, is everything.

  He’s spent the summer telling himself that every day that passes is bringing him closer to Annie.

  Now, having been reminded at the hospital just how precarious life can be, Thom finds himself wondering if instead, every day that passes might be taking him farther away from Annie.

  What if she’s forgotten him?

  What if she’s found somebody else?

  What if she’s sold the house and moved away?

  Maybe he should just throw caution to the wind . . .

  But if you get this wrong, you might not have another chance, Thom reminds himself, hurrying to cross Park Avenue before the light changes.

  What should he do?

  Take a risk, or play it safe?

  Susan is taking a risk. If it works out, she’ll have a baby in her arms in another few months.

  If it doesn’t . . .

  No. Don’t think of that.

  Safely across the street, Thom continues toward home, telling himself that after a good night’s sleep, he’s sure to come to his senses and stick with his original plan.

  Yes, that’s exactly what he should do.

  He takes a deep, calming breath . . . and frowns.

  The warm air is fragrant with an intoxicating floral scent.

  He glances around, half-expecting to find himself standing in front of an all-night Korean grocery, the kind that has buckets of fresh cellophane-wrapped blossoms outdoors.

  He sees nothing but a row of apartment buildings, a deserted bus stop, a garbage can.

  Not a flower in sight, and yet . . .

  Again, he breathes in the distinct perfume, and then, all at once, realizes what it is.

  Honeysuckle.

  Honeysuckle is wafting all around him, potent and invisible, with no possible source.

  You’re delirious, he tells himself, hurriedly covering the last block toward his building.

  So deliriously tired you’re imagining things. You need to get some rest.

  But the smell of honeysuckle seems to follow him all the way home, lingering in the air long after he’s climbed into bed and fallen into a disappointingly dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 20

  0ut on the screen porch the next afternoon, Annie is gluing the last seashell to the final heart-shaped paperweight when she hears gravel crunching in the driveway. From here, she can’t see around to the front of the house, but it isn’t hard to guess who the visitor might be.

  Merlin, she thinks wearily, turning the shell a fraction of an inch and stepping back to survey its placement. He called this morning in a tizzy over the latest weather report, insisting that she and the kids immediately pack up their belongings and flee the coast.

  “Isn’t that a little premature?” Annie asked, outwardly amused, inwardly a bit alarmed. “The storm is still a few days away.”

  Indeed, the sun is shining brightly today and the sky is blue. Only the increasingly rough surf that brought die-hard surfers flocking to Montauk beaches this morning is any indication that a hurricane is brewing.

  Now, as Annie puts down her glue gun and rubs her fingers together to remove the sticky residue, she hears a car door slam out front.

  Why can’t stubborn Merlin just take “no” for an answer? What is he planning to do, manhandle Annie and the children into his car?

  Maybe you should just tell him the real reason you’re so determined to stay home . . .

  But Annie never confided in Merlin about the earlier phone calls. Does she really want to get into all of that now? Does she really want to hear Merlin remind her that she’s always had a vivid imagination?

  With a sigh, she leaves the screen porch and heads across the lawn to the front of the house.

  She’d better waylay Merlin before he can go inside, where Milo and Trixie are watching cartoons, oblivious to the coming storm. All Annie needs is for the drama queen to scare them witless with his perilous weather forecast.

  Barefoot, wary of the bumblebees buzzing from dandelion to dandelion in the grass, Annie picks her way past the weed-choked perennial beds along the foundation and the coil of green hose she’s forbidden to use because of the drought.

  At least hurricane rains will be a reprieve for the garden—and, with luck, from the oppressive dog days of August.

  Yes, the storm might be a blessing in disguise.

  She’ll point out to Merlin that this solid old house has been standing on the coast for a century, has outlasted countless hurricanes and nor’easters, is on relatively high ground. That’s what Andre always used to say, reassuringly, when she worried about an approaching gale.

  There’s no reason to think it won’t make it through another storm.

  Coming around the corner of the house, Annie stops short.

  It isn’t Merlin’s car in the driveway . . .

  And it isn’t Merlin she sees striding purposefully up the front steps with a vast bouquet of roses in one hand and a shopping bag in the other.

  Speechless, Annie stares at Thom Brannock.

  What is he doing here, unannounced, uninvited?

  Annie welcomes an immediate flicker of anger, rejects the disconcerting spark of attraction that arrives right along with it.

  He has no right to show up out of the blue after months of not bothering with even a phone call.

  Never mind that she asked him to stay away.

  He shouldn’t be here.

  Ignoring the forbidden stirring deep inside of her, Annie fiercely reminds herself that she doesn’t want to see him.

  Certainly not now. Her hand flies up to her unkempt hair; her gaze down to her ancient cutoffs and bathing suit top.

  No, she doesn’t want to see him, not now, not tomorrow, not ever again.

  She lifts her head to watch him cross the porch and come to a halt in front of the door. His chest rises sharply beneath his light blue linen shirt as he takes a deep breath. She notices the way his cheeks puff out as he exhales, eyes closed, almost as though he’s trying to mentally prepare himself for whatever lies ahead.

  In t
hat instant, Annie glimpses an unexpected vulnerability in the man who’s always seemed in utmost control.

  He’s afraid, she thinks, watching in wonder. He’s afraid that I’m going to reject him.

  Still unaware of her presence, Thom nods abruptly, apparently having reached some inner resolution.

  Then, taking another deep breath, he lifts his hand to knock on the door.

  “Wait!”

  Startled by the shout behind him, Thom looks over his shoulder.

  Annie.

  Annie, sun-bronzed and beautiful, running barefoot through the grass, heedless of bumblebees, pebbles, thorns.

  Running toward him, just the way she did in his dreams.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks raggedly as he tosses the flowers and presents onto the porch swing and swiftly descends the steps to meet her.

  “I had to see you.” He welcomes her into his arms, rests his face against her hair.

  “But why?” Her voice is muffled in his shoulder as he pulls her closer. “I told you . . .”

  “I know what you told me. I know you needed time. And I gave you time, Annie.”

  “But that wasn’t . . .” She pulls back to look up at him, shaking her head. “Nothing has changed, Thom.”

  She’s lying.

  He knows it.

  He knows it because despite her words, she’s wearing the same expression he glimpsed in her eyes that last night they were together. It was fleeting that night, there and then gone . . .

  But not anymore.

  She’s gazing up at him as though she’s been waiting for him.

  “Everything has changed, Annie,” he says gently. “Everything.”

  He leans toward her until his lips are mere inches from hers. He can hear her breath catch in her throat and then, as he leans closer, escape on a sigh to gently stir the air between them.

  “Don’t,” she murmurs in the last split second before he captures her mouth with his own.

  In stark contrast to her vocal protest, she hungrily welcomes his kiss, her hands immediately encircling his neck as she sinks into him.

  Only when he realizes that her face is wet with tears does he lift his head abruptly in concern.

  “Annie . . .” He brushes the backs of his hands against her cheeks, drying her tears. “I’m sorry.”

  “No . . . don’t be sorry. I’ve wanted you to come back.” A choking sob escapes her . . .